


From Eden

by Liquid_Lyrium



Series: Reversi Omens [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Angel Crowley (Good Omens), Demon Aziraphale (Good Omens), Fallen Angel Aziraphale (Good Omens), First Meetings, Lying to God, M/M, MeetCute, Other, Reverse Omens, Scene: Garden of Eden (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-18 19:28:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29373867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liquid_Lyrium/pseuds/Liquid_Lyrium
Summary: “Didn’t I see you with one of Heaven’s flaming swords?“The demon looked distinctly discomfited which was, the angel noted, becoming a rather default expression on the other being.  “Oh, I don’t think so. No, I’d definitely remember having something like that.”"I did! It was flaming like anything! Where is it? Give it back.” It vaguely occurred to him he was probably supposed to do some smiting here, but that seemed like an awful lot of effort. For one demon.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Reversi Omens [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1979378
Comments: 6
Kudos: 28





	From Eden

**Author's Note:**

> This has been sitting on my tumblo forever, finally cleaned it up and tweaked it tho. Thanks to snel for helping me out by comparing the old versions! I have tweaked this further and I think the is finally the *definitive* definitive version lol.

The angel nominally in charge of Eden had a name. It ended in -el, but he was not overly fond of it. He didn’t dislike it, mind. He hadn’t had it all that long, frankly. He was still getting used to it. All that being said; he simply felt, privately, like he wanted a name with his own identity not so tied to Hers. Something else he could use when he wanted to. _Options._

Something in the air had changed. It was no longer searingly hot. The sky on the horizon darkened. The angel was a bit thankful for it, since his black robes of night absorbed and clung jealously to every bit of heat the sun had to offer.

A great white bird of prey with a wicked beak landed on the wall a moment later. A scavenger, the angel realized a moment later, but then the bird’s form shifted and grew. Feathers melting into skin until only white wings were left. Harsh in the sun. Only, no. There were black feathers there too. Almost invisible when they were tucked in close to his body. The being’s simple raiments were also white. His hair was short, but the way it fluffed up made the angel think of the feathers he’d had as a bird just moments ago. Right beside the other’s temple, it looked like a vulture’s footprint, burned into the skin. _Etched there by the Fall?_ He’d caught glimpses of the demon before, in both forms, but he hadn’t realized that it was the same being.

_Could I do that? Or can you only change shapes like that when you’ve been broken down and reforged into something new once before?_

“Well now, this is becoming something of a habit, wouldn’t you say?” The demon looked around, scratching his chin thoughtfully. As if they had been in the middle of a conversation previously.

“What?”

“I said ‘it’s becoming something of a habit.’ Making a paradise and then showing people the door. Rather rudely, in some cases I might add.”

“Er, yeah. Guess it does look that way.” Angels weren’t supposed to lie, were they? Even to disagree with a demon.

“Still, I suppose it’s all part of the Great Plan.”

“The Great Plan?”

“Exactly. Everything happens for a reason! Even if we don’t understand it. Especially if we don’t understand it.”

“Wait, hang on, so you’re saying there’s no such thing as free will? ‘S all destiny?”

“Well… broadly.” The demon looked mildly uncomfortable.

“I mean, if it’s all been planned out since the beginning what’s the point of everything? I mean the War and kicking you lot out? And the humans and kicking _them_ out. Big tree, big garden, ‘oh have whatever you like except _this_ one.’ Could’ve put it on another planet or something, if they weren’t meant to have it. Why punish them if it’s all part of the plan! That’s mad!”

“Look, I never said the Almighty had a _good_ reason. Just that there were reasons. Ineffable reasons beyond our understanding.” The demon pulled lightly at his robes, adjusting the neckline.

The angel, who was still pondering the idea of coming up with a new name at the back of his head, thought for a while. Finally, after many moments he repeated the word. “Ineffable.”

“Quite. I suppose you must be a bit put out with the humans getting the boot…?” He couldn’t tell if the demon was actually being pleasant or if he was happy at one of Her plans going awry.

Because it had _definitely_ gone awry.

It clicked a moment later that he was being asked for his name.

“Oh. Er, right. Cerviel,” it felt wrong on his tongue. Like a feather bent out of shape on his wing.

The demon started to chortle before politely hiding his laughter into his fist. Cerviel felt just a little deflated. _He doesn’t like it._ The demon’s voice did the _thing_ again. Where he spoke truth but it tasted something like a lie. “Oh my. Ruler of the principalities? I didn’t realize I was in such _princely_ company. And yet,” the demon swivelled his head back and forth, whipping it like the bird he’d just been, “there’s only cherubs here for company guarding the gates, so what are you here for, I wonder?”

Cerviel felt his face grow hot. _What indeed? For fucking up, apparently._

“Well, as to your _first_ question,” Cerviel’s teeth clicked together as he snapped his mouth shut. The humans had feared him for the longest time. He’d been _told_ they were supposed to love him. They couldn’t look him in the eyes. Couldn’t behold him, had to throw themselves in the dirt and cry for mercy. He couldn’t help it; he couldn’t help that mortals weren’t made to behold stars. They couldn’t even look at the sun for _this_ planet and it was _miles_ (and miles and miles and miles and miles) away! Really. What had the Almighty been _thinking?_ All that time and effort spent on a star they couldn’t look at without blinding themselves. They could only look at his creations that were lightyears away. Not nearly as impressive. Major design flaw. Still, they were plucky, creative things and he respected that. He looked forward to what they would do. “Mixed bag, really.”

“Oh.” The demon sounded a little surprised. Like he hadn’t expected that.

“Still don’t see what all the fuss is about knowing the difference between good and evil,” Cerviel crossed his arms defensively.

“Well,” the demon seemed a bit at a loss of how to reconcile the whole business. “I… suppose it might make them more susceptible to my side’s machinations. Oh, I wish I’d thought to give them the apple. Be a properly wicked thing to do! They did look rather scrumptious. For a fruit, anyway. Especially the ones that’d fallen off the vine and sat for a few days…”

The angel gave the other ethereal being the celestial side-eye, suddenly struck by a nagging sense of… well something adjacent to urgency and duty. And maybe panic.

“Didn’t I see you with one of Heaven’s flaming swords?“

The demon looked distinctly discomfited which was, the angel noted, becoming a rather default expression on the other being. “Oh, I don’t think so. No, I’d definitely remember having something like that.”

"I did! It was flaming like anything! Where is it? Give it back.” It vaguely occurred to him he was probably supposed to do some smiting here, but that seemed like an awful lot of effort. For one demon. _Did I know you? They didn’t give out flaming swords to just anybody. I never got one._ Not that he’d made much of an effort to be available to take part in the Great Rebellion. _War._

_The Great War._

The demon made a show of patting down his bone-white robes. “Well I don’t seem to have it on my person at the moment. Funny that…”

“Alright, where’ve you stashed it then? C'mon. Cough it up. You’ve been caught.”

The demon’s voice did something strange. Something the angel had never quite heard a voice do before. “Well if you _really_ feel like taking it back you can take it off those poor, cold, defenseless humans.”

“Ngk.”

 _“And_ she’s expecting already,” the demon added smugly, pressing his advantage. How very strange. It was like lying, except not. The words were true, but they were.. insincere somehow. Utterly fascinating.

The angel tilted his head, struck by a strange, incongruous thought. “Wait, you _gave_ it to them? With all the vicious animals out there and darkness closing in?” _And the cold a few fig leaves can’t hope to stave off?_

Those eyes were the color of blood-soaked earth, and there wasn’t a hint of white even as the demon’s eyes went perfectly round with fear, “Don’t get any ideas! I was disposing of evidence and unloading myself of stolen goods. It was perfectly within the bounds of demonic activity! Entirely respectable! Well, disreputable.” There was a pause and then the demon whispered softly, almost to himself, “Oh bugger… I hope I haven’t gone and done a good thing.”

Cerviel couldn’t help gaping slack-jawed at the demon. Weren’t the Fallen marvelous creatures? As strong an argument in favor of free will versus destiny as the angel had ever seen.

“Oh, I don’t think you have to worry about that.” He found himself smiling at the other being.

“Oh?” The demon turned towards him and, for a moment, looked extremely vulnerable and hopeful. Something like the angel he might’ve been not so very long ago. _I must have known you, didn’t I? Of you? I must have done._ The angel had to ignore a very strange pressure in his chest. Like his heart was at the center of a collapsing star.

Must be one of those demonic wiles he’d been warned about.

“Oh yeah,” the angel smiled softly, his voice sounding far off as any of his own creations. “You’re a demon I don’t think you _can_ do the right thing.”

“O-oh! Of course! You’re right!” Cerviel suddenly couldn’t breathe as the demon’s face lost some of its tension. He tried very hard not to think about the fact that this didn’t _feel_ like a demonic wile, but something altogether else.

_Almighty preserve me. Save me from whatever it is his face is doing to me._

“Well, I suppose you _would_ be, being an angel and all but… that is… yes. Of course. It was an entirely wicked, wicked thing to do! Yes!” The demon seemed to regain some confidence which was… well, something very close to sweet as the demon’s nervous smile warmed around the edges.

Why was it so hard to work his jaw and make his voicebox vibrate? “The right thing to do would’ve been to give the sword back to me so I could take it back upstairs.”

The demon looked entirely too pleased with himself, and swayed a little in place. His hands neatly folded in front of the soft belly of his corporation, “Right you are! Ooh what a rotter I am! Such a rapscallion! Outwitting the forces of Heaven!” There were the softest crinkles around the being’s eyes as he punched the air lightly in triumph, and Cerviel wanted to fall into them. Somehow, inexplicably, God’s loveliest creation had survived being cast aside without losing a single shred of beauty. _Why’d they tell us you were all ugly and twisted and impure and unlovable? None of that’s true about you at all._

… _Oh fuck._

“Hey, uh, by the by, quick question. Honest opinion,” Cerviel cast about for _anything_ to distract himself from this sudden revelation. Tried to keep his breathing under control. “D’you think it’s possible for an angel to do the wrong thing?”

Pale white eyelashes fluttered at him in rapid confusion. “Wh-?”

The angel looked upwards, suddenly finding the darkening firmament extremely fascinating. (Though, to be fair, the sky _was_ doing something new.) “I mean, let’s say, as an example that the Almighty has a semi-responsible-for-humanity emissary on the planet. And let’s say that self-same emissary got… bored, and wanted to just… test things a little.”

“What sort of things?” The demon tilted his head, eyes narrowing. Cerviel couldn’t quite look directly at him.

 _Angels aren’t supposed to lie, right? How am I supposed to say ‘I wanted to see if I could still make stars after being given a different function?’ That I wanted to see if I could make one that they could hold and look at the same way I can. I wanted to give them that. Then I got side tracked by playing with gravity, and I thought it’d be a grand idea to test the whole self-restraint impulse She put in them._ “Well, it may have been the case that Eve so happened to be looking right at the forbidden tree when one of those forbidden fruit fell to the Earth. Who could blame her for getting curious, right?”

“The Almighty, evidently,” the demon said with a raised brow. “And your part in this was….?” The demon trailed off expectantly.

The heat of his eyes paled in comparison to the burning of his cheeks. “Well, it may have been my actions that led to the apple falling in the first place.” _And asking her if she wanted it when she bent over to pick it up. How was I supposed to know something built by the Almighty would fail such a simple test?_

Angels weren’t supposed to lie, but surely withholding the truth was something altogether different.

The more his companion blinked, the more Cerviel noticed just how _big_ those eyes were. “You mean… you were the one who _tempted_ them?”

“Don’t say it like that!” The angel hissed the words through his teeth, eyes burning. He tried not to think of how _approving_ the other had sounded when he’d said it was a properly wicked thing to do. His cheeks burned hotter. “I was _testing_ her.” _So what if it was improvised?_

The demon chuckled, the sound much less sure, darting his head side to side nervously. “Gracious… D’you suppose it would be funny if I did the good deed and you did the bad one?”

Cerviel thought about it for a moment, then tossed his head back and belted out a long, ugly laugh wholly unbecoming of an angel, arms folding in around his waist, wings shaking behind him. There was a faint hiss as tears appeared on his lashline and evaporated instantly.

“Stoppit! Stop that at once! It’s not funny!” The demon waved his arms, still looking around, as if expecting someone to descend on them at any moment.

The angel grinned around his words, “No, no you’re right. It _would_ be funny.” He couldn’t remember enjoying himself like this _ever_ in another’s company. He probably wasn’t supposed to, but he did anyway. God help him. 

The demon sniffed and spat out his words quick and sharp as a fresh splintered bone, “I thought you said I couldn’t be right.”

His cheeks _ached_ from smiling. “Well…” he shook with laughter of a different kind. Utterly silent, his feathers fluttering softly. There was an _ache_ in his chest. Full of something far bigger than a star, than Her love. It made his ribs feel like steel strings, full of pressure, waiting to be plucked or broken. 

There was a sharp, tiny weight of something wet splotching against his cheek and Cerviel jumped. His fingers traced over his skin absently, heart still racing from the minor shock. He’d never had a tear make it that far before! There was another, and then one on his forehead, and he looked up. _Oh, sky tears. Not mine._ His heart quickened as one dropped right in his eye, boiling immediately as it came into contact with his coronal cornea.

“Here.” His vision was suddenly obscured by white feathers, and he ducked down a little to take shelter from… whatever this new thing was. The air was cold, so he wrapped his arms around himself, and let his eyes burn with a little more heat.

There was a loud, terrible sound that split the air, and Cerviel suddenly _knew_ it was Her—and She was _angry._ It was a sound he’d heard from far, far away during the Rebellion. ( _War._ The Great War.) His ever-burning heart went cold, and he was sore afraid. He feared for the small, pathetic humans out there. Just a bit of bone and dust and a sword against Her wrath. Doomed before they even got started.

“It’ll be alright,” the demon at his side said quietly, with conviction.

Cerviel turned and looked at him. “How do you _know?_ ”

“It’ll be alright,” he nodded. “She loves them. Great big plans for them, I’m sure.”

_Is that a good thing? Look what happened to you._

“…Yeah, plans. Right.”

As Cerviel looked out across the desert—at water pooling along soil not meant to drink so much of it so fast—Her love didn’t sound like the ringing endorsement that it should. 

***

When they parted ways, the demon stretched out a hand. “Right, looking forward to being your hereditary enemy!”

He slowly blinked at the hand, and lifted a brow in question.

“Just a friendly gesture! You grab it and give it a shake.”

The hair on the back of his neck stood on end. “Sorry, I don’t think…” Cerviel gestured upwards in a sort of _‘It’s not me, it’s my bosses’_ sort of motion. Definitely not a _‘if I let myself touch you I don’t think I could bear to let you go’_ motion.

“Oh. Oh, right, yes. Of course,” the demon withdrew the offered gesture, and his hands folded together like pale wings.

“Still, uh, guess we’ll see each other at Armageddon then?” Fuck that was a long way off. That pressure in his chest tightened.

“Oh undoubtedly! Best of luck! Your lot will be needing it! Cheerio!”

For the second time, the demon changed before his eyes, shrinking impossibly into an even smaller vessel and flying away in a burst of white feathers.

_I wonder if it’s uncomfortable… fitting into a skin that small._

The angel stared at his hand, and thought about all the creatures he’d seen in the garden. _Could try and find out._

It was probably a bad idea. What if he got stuck? What if his corporation wasn’t meant to do this at all? What if only demons were supposed to change?

What if that pressure in his chest burst apart?

_Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?_

He thought of the creature that had made Adam shriek at such a shrill pitch it had attracted several sexually confused birds as he ran for cover. A sleek, limbless thing made of tightly-knit scales. If he was going to try something angels weren’t meant to do, he should probably try to start with something simple, right?

He closed his eyes, and thought of a pattern in the firmament. He pictured his body hinged together by burning engines converting hydrogen into helium. He used to do this all the time, rearranging stars. Like this, his body was no different. The creatures were star-stuff, after all. Little echoes of the universe wrapped up in matter. His core seemed to be hotter, denser, he felt impossibly heavy, like he couldn’t stand, and he could feel the dirt along his belly. His much longer, endless belly. _Oh._

When he opened his eyes again, and let the light waves bounce and return to his skull, he found his perspective much shifted. Moving was a bit of a challenge without limbs, but he got the hang of it. His spine seemed to shiver, aching with the strain of trying to keep himself so condensed. It felt like his atoms were shaking apart, and Cerviel found himself exploding onto all fours like a nova, one of the walls of Paradise crumbling in the blast. And possibly the cherub along with it. Whoops.

Before he could even get up to regain his dignity he felt a familiar light. Grander than any star he’d worked on. A gravity well deeper than even he could comprehend. He did not hear Her, but he _knew_ what She was saying, what She wanted.

_One-who-is-the-Cerviel, what happened to the wall of the garden?_

Well shit. This was probably bad. As bad, if not worse, than the apple thing. Or the falling for one’s hereditary enemy thing. “Wall, what wall?” He made a show of looking around. “Don’t see a wall here.”

_The wall that used to define the Eastern border of Eden. The wall that once held the Eastern gate._

“Oh. _That_ wall. Er, can I ask why you’re asking? I mean, you weren’t planning on letting them back in were you?”

His heart raced, revolved faster in place as She didn’t answer. “Were you!?”

But he was alone, more alone than he’d ever been in space with his creations, and Cerviel sat heavily on the ground, hands tangled in his hair.

“Fuck.”

**Author's Note:**

> ANYWAYS I love birds. I love Egyptian Vultures they're so cool and pretty and there are a lot of thematic Reasons(tm) I picked that for Aztarioth.


End file.
